Elizabeth Blackwell (1821 - 1910)

Elizabeth Blackwell was a British physician, notable as the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council. She was well-known in both the United States and the United Kingdom as a social and moral reformer. She acted as a pioneer in promoting the education of women in medicine.

Elizabeth Blackwell was initially uninterested in a career in medicine especially after her schoolteacher brought in a bull's eye to use as a teaching tool. She became a schoolteacher in order to support her family. Blackwell's motivation to go into medicine came after her friend fell ill and suggested that if a female doctor had cared for her, she might not have suffered so much. Blackwell began to apply to medical schools, however, she endured a lot of prejudice due to her gender. She was rejected from all the medical schools she applied to except Geneva (NY) Medical College. In 1847 Blackwell became the first woman to attend medical school in the United States.

Elizabeth Blackwell had her inaugural thesis on typhoid fever published in the Buffalo Medical Journal right after she graduated from college in 1849. This article was the first medical article published by a female student from the United States. Her article portrayed a strong sense of empathy and sensitivity to human suffering as well as a strong desire for social and economic justice. Source: Wikipedia

Known for
In 1857, Blackwell (with her sister, Emily Blackwell) opened the New York Infirmary for Women and Children.

After the Civil War, in 1868, the Blackwell sisters established the Women's Medical College in New York City (a teaching hospital).

In 1874, Blackwell worked together with Florence Nightingale, Sophia Jex-Blake, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Emily Blackwell, and Thomas Henry Huxley in order to create the first medical school for women in England called, London School of Medicine for Women.

An appeal in behalf of the medical education of women (1856)

Medicine as a Profession for Women (1860) (lecture published by the trustees of the New York Infirmary for Women)

Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children in Relation to Sex (1878 and eight editions) Also published as The Moral Education of the Young in Relation to Sex

Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women – Autobiographical Sketches (1895, reprinted 1977)

Find more
Wikipedia

NIH.gov

The Excellent Doctor Blackwell: The Life of the First Woman Physician (2005) by Julia Boyd